Magic and Monsters
by TheEagerScribbler
Summary: Edward has finally told Bella the truth about who he is and he has made his feelings about what he is perfectly clear. Now it's Bella's turn to be honest. She's terrified that Edward will cast her aside because of what she is. Will Edward and his family reject her as her kind has been rejected for centuries or will she finally be able to stop hiding? A 3-shot.


Author's Note: I usually prefer to stick closer to canon, but lately I've been thinking about Edward's logic with regards to the state of his soul. If he believes that he is damned because of what is and because he had given into his nature and killed humans, how would he feel about Bella if her circumstances were different? Would he think that Bella were damned if she were a witch, or a vampire, or had been placed into a situation where the only way to survive had been to do things typically deemed as 'morally reprehensible'? If Bella really is Edward's match how would he rationalize his argument? What affect would it have had on the series? It's an interesting 'what if' scenario to me.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight

Just so you guys know, I don't have the books on me for reference, so I apologize if anything's too inconsistent.

Sincerely,

TheEagerScribbler

Magic and Monsters

Bella shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Edward had just admitted to being a vampire, and now they were at her home in her bedroom and she had nearly made her own confession. She had stopped because Edward referred to himself as a soulless monster because he had given into his nature and killed humans. It wasn't that she was okay with murder, but she recognized them as mistakes, and also knew that he had believed that he was doing the right thing until he willingly stopped on his own because of his conscience. Somehow that made him seem less monstrous. If he thought of himself as monstrous, then what would he think of her? He grew up at the turn of the 20th century. What would he think of someone like her if he really knew.

He affectionately smoothed a strand of hair away from her face. "I keep expecting you to run away screaming," he murmured. "I can hardly believe that you're still here with me."

Bella embraced him tightly. "Neither of us are going anywhere tonight. Tonight I'm holding you prisoner."

He chuckled a bit, a sound that Bella found strangely beautiful to her ears. "You can hold me prisoner anytime you like."

"Good, because I never want you to leave." She said half seriously.

"Then I suppose it's a good thing that I have no desire to leave you." She felt strangely warm, but goose bumps formed on her arms. He gently loosened her grip and then wrapped her up in a blanket. "I keep forgetting how fragile you are…" he trailed off. "I'm going to have to be careful. I'm not sure you realize how breakable you are. I could crush your bones to dust if I wanted to."

"But you won't." This Bella was absolutely sure of. He was too gentle, and he clearly felt things very intensely. Sometimes the intensity was frightening, but she knew that he cared about her too much to hurt her. Still, she wondered if he would leave her if he found out the truth.

He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Somehow the temperature of the room changed and a chill ran down her spine. She clutched the warm quilt closer."You don't know that. I could slip, and I'm not simply referring to my...unusual appetite. What if I reach to embrace you and accidentally crush you? What if I try to hold your hand and break it instead? Do you realize how easily I could accidentally shatter each of the bones in your hand? If I'm going to be too weak to leave you and insist on ignoring your own safety I'm going to have to be cautious enough for the both of us." He sighed.

"Tell me about your family," Bella interrupted, hastily changing the subject. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but he kept whatever it was to himself. "Please? Your family seems very important to you, so they're important to me too."

"I suppose I'll start in chronological order. First, there was Carlisle. He traveled alone for many years, but he was lonely. He would never condemn anyone to this existence if they had a chance, so he never changed anyone...until me, that is. He took care of my mother and I as we lay dying in a hospital of the Spanish Influenza in 1918. She begged him to do everything in his power to save me, so he did. He's been a father to me from the moment I woke up, although we sometimes are forced to pose as brothers for the sake of the public. A few years later he met Esme. At first I was angry at him for changing someone else-he knew how I felt about condemning someone else to this life. He told me that he didn't feel like there was a choice. He felt compelled to change her, and the feeling went beyond all reason. As time went on he fell in love with her and she quickly became a mother to me." He paused for a moment to give Bella a chance to process her thoughts, or maybe just collect his own. "They were the reason that I waited so long to go out on my own. I loved them too much to hurt them, but by my reckoning I was a grown man trapped in the body of a seventeen year old and I had wondered if Carlisle's way was the only way. And well… you know what happened. A few years after I returned he changed Rosalie when he found her dying. He had hoped that we'd find the kind of love that he and Esme had, but trust me, there was no danger of that ever happening. I love her like a sister, but I've never had any romantic interest in her. She begged Carlisle to change Emmett after he had been mauled by a bear. Alice and Jasper didn't join our family until the 50's. The rest is history." He chuckled at his own private joke. History must have been a strange concept for vampires.

"What about them though? What can you tell me about them? What are they like?"

"Carlisle is probably the most compassionate person I know and Esme is without a doubt the most kind. They're a fitting pair, and they're unique in the vampire world. Carlisle must be the only vampire doctor in history and they are probably the most human too. We have friends in Alaska that we consider to be extended family that share our lifestyle, but even so, I doubt any other vampire has walked into the house to his mother baking a cake," his affectionate smile told Bella that he really did love her like a mother. "Rosalie likes attention and can be rather vain at times, but she was considered an unusual woman for many years because of her talent with cars. She's an excellent mechanic," he said with pride. "She's tinkered with every car we've had for decades. She also has a sharp tongue at times too, but we take it in stride because she usually means well. In a way Emmett has kept her grounded. He is childlike in some ways, but he would do just about anything for our family and is extremely loyal. He and Rosalie are perfect together, and things became a lot calmer around the house when she brought Emmett home. We had thought that our family was complete with Emmett, but Alice proved us wrong. Jasper and Alice had been living on their own when they found us, but they instantly became family. Esme was over the moon to have two more children when most vampires don't even have one. Jasper is gifted like me, but his is the ability to control emotions. He is an excellent strategist and spends a great deal of time reading when he isn't with Alice. Alice sees the future, and that took a while to get used to. We already struggle with privacy because of our enhanced hearing and my mind reading ability, and when they joined we had even less."

"How do you deal with the lack of privacy?" Bella wondered out loud.

"Privacy is a fairly recent concept, but we do our best to give each other space. Jasper and I have gotten fairly good at tuning people out the way you would tune out the babble of the other students in a hallway, Alice has gotten better at controlling her vision over the years. Her favorite hobby is designing clothes, although I think shopping is a close second. We're unusual because only one other coven shares our diet, and our diet is what allows us to keep our humanity. That's why we can remain civilized enough to be a family." He smiled. "Now that you know everything about my family, tell me about yourself."

This was her chance. The mere thought of telling him sent butterflies to jumble up her stomach. "I um, am a pretty boring person. I've already told you about my parents, and I don't really have any hobbies besides reading. I've always loved Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Shakespeare. My mom likes to tease me about my taste in books sometimes-she says I have the taste of an 90 year old woman." Why did she have tell him that? The words just came tumbling out before she could stop them.

"Then I suppose that makes us perfect together, considering that I'm almost a century old."

She'd have to tell him. If she waited he'd never forgive her, but what would he forgive her for telling him in the first place?

"What are you thinking about?" He asked.

"Huh?"

"You looked you were thinking about something very intently." She hadn't realized that it had been so obvious. Bella took a deep breath to fortify herself for the coming conversation. "What is it, love? You heart just started beating faster than it was earlier." That was a little creepy, but she pushed the thought aside.

How did someone go about telling their absurdly moral vampire boyfriend who was nearly a century old that they were a witch? "Promise me that you won't say anything until I'm finished."

"Of course," he nodded in agreement.

How to begin? "When I was little a lot of accidents happened around me. Sometimes things that Renee had taken away from would end up in my playpen or things would randomly break when I was nearby. At first my parents would blame it on my clumsiness or their own forgetfulness, but one day Renee sat me down and explained why everything happened." Bella forced herself to make eye contact with Edward to make sure that he was still with her. "You see, some people are born with certain abilities that others don't have." She was starting to get really nervous and she could hear her heart pounding harder in her chest with every sentence. "We don't have a choice-it's biology. We inherit it the same way that you inherit your hair color or freckles, you know. People are afraid of us because they don't understand us, so we scatter and try to blend in the best we can." Tear pricked at Bella's eyes and her throat began to feel raw as she finally said the words that she knew would damn her in his eyes. "We've been called a lot of different things, but the most common is…" the words were caught in her throat.

Edward drew her into a hug. "Don't be afraid. I've already told you that I'm a bloodsucking monster, it can't be much worse than that."

"You might disagree with that once you know." She croaked out.

"Why would you say that?"

"I know what people have said about us through the years. They used to…" she hiccuped. "They used to say that we're evil, that we sold our soul to the Devil to gain our abilities. They'd burn us at the stake and murder our children. At least they'd try to, anyway. We were usually the best at blending into the community, so they rarely managed to actually kill one us. Still…" She sniffled. "if you think that someone as good as you could be a monster simply because your body went through a biological change that you can't control," She hiccuped again. "What will you think of me when I tell you that I'm a...a...a witch," Bella said as she silently resigned herself to life to without Edward. She wasn't quite sure why she was crying. Bella wasn't ashamed at what she was. Why should she when she couldn't change it anymore than she could change how long her her legs were? For some reason she had developed a frighteningly intense attachment to Edward, and the more the possibility that he could hate her for what she was terrified her.

He tenderly wiped the tears away from her eyes and kissed her on the forehead. She wanted to cry again, but for different reasons. She had been certain that he'd hate her. "Bella, I could never think you're a monster. You're too _good_. I don't believe for a second that your soul is destined for anywhere other than heaven. You're not like me Bella. You don't have murder staining your soul."

"You can't help what you are anymore than I can help what I am. Besides, you feel remorse Edward. You've spent decades beating yourself up over what you did, and even then you never once hurt an innocent! How can a soulless monster feel remorse? If you're going to damn yourself for what you are then you have to damn me for what I am too, as well as the rest of your family. What about Carlisle? Didn't you tell me he's the most compassionate person you've ever met? Are you telling me that he's destined for hell too? You can't have it both ways! You can't base an argument based on your species, that's ridiculous!"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You win. I'm not a monster. Now, why don't we move on to why you were so afraid to tell me? I can't read your mind you know. It figures that the mind that I want to read the most is the only one that I can't read."

"People have hated and feared us as much as vampires. You seem too good to be true, and I don't want to lose you. I couldn't hide it from you after the risk you took by telling me that you're a vampire."

"Can you tell me about your abilities? You certainly smell human-" for some reason that made Bella uncomfortable. Did she stink or something? She tried to discreetly sniff her hair and he laughed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. And don't worry, you smell too good."

"Oh, uh...thanks?"

"You are most welcome." He chuckled. "I only meant to say Carlisle has a theory about gifted vampires already showing traces of their vampire abilities when they were human. He thinks that the change only magnifies it because our brains become more efficient. I'm wondering if your existence explains it."

Bella thought about it for a moment before answering. "There are different levels of magical ability. It's pretty rare, but sometimes you'll meet someone with a high level of ability and you can feel the magic radiating off of them. If you need something big they're the ones you want. Very few people are that strong, though. Most people aren't that powerful. Some people can barely make an object twitch. Others are only able to do one specific thing, and the rest of their magic is too weak to do anything else. For instance, for some reason Renee is only good at luck charms." This time Edward began to laugh hard. "Hey, what's so funny?"

"I'm sorry, it's just that you are by far the most unlucky human I've ever met. You've somehow managed to move into the one town populated by a family of vampires, have nearly been killed in a car accident, and were nearly hurt by a group of thugs your first time in Seattle since you moved here."

"From my perspective I must be the luckiest person I've ever met." Bella countered. "I met you and you've saved me twice. Who knows, with my luck I'd probably be dead without her charms."

"It's hard to argue with that. What about you? What are your abilities?"

"I can do some low level spells, but that's it, nothing terribly useful unless you lose things frequently or need a quick boost in your mood."

"Sorry, we have perfect memories and an empath for that."

"Then I guess you're out of luck."

" I wouldn't say that. All I need is you."

"Oh, then I guess we're covered." Bella settled back into Edward's arms. "You know, for someone who claims that you skin is harder than diamond, you're very comfortable." Now that her secret was out she suddenly felt exhausted, and she had to force herself to stay awake.

"Sleep Bella. I promise I'll still be here when I wake up."

As promised, when Bella woke up the first thing she saw was Edward's face. He looked as handsome as ever, and his was still a little messed up from the position they had been laying in. The sight of him was enough to make her heart flutter, even if she wasn't quite enough to articulate all that. "Morning." She mumbled.

"Good morning love. How did you sleep."

"Good." She mumbled.

His eyebrows furrowed, shifting his expression of bliss to one of concern. "Let me make you breakfast. I'm not sure I trust you with anything sharp when you're like this," he said doubtfully.

"I'm fine with cereal, really. Just let me get ready and I'll meet you in the kitchen to show you how _I_ eat." Bella got dressed and brushed her hair and teeth with what must have been record speed, because seven minutes later she was down stairs digging through the cabinets. "Hmm, where did Charlie put it...ah hah! There it is." She waved a box in the air.

"Luck charms?" Before she even turned around to look at him she could from his voice that he was amused.

"You know what the box says- "They're magically delicious!"" A goofy grin grew across her face. He wore one that matched hers, which made Bella want to grin more. "I imagine it's a lot easier than going out and catching a mountain lion."

"It's also considerably more convenient. Speaking of mountain lions, tonight I'm going hunting, but tomorrow, I was wondering if you'd like to meet my parents." Wasn't it a little soon for that? Maybe not. After all, being with Edward felt right somehow. She couldn't explain it, but who was she to question the feeling? "They'll love you, magic or not. I'll be with you the whole time, so I'm certain they'll behave-not that I'm putting you in any real danger-they'd never hurt you. Carlisle's taken an oath to save lives, and the rest of my family would never purposefully hurt a human, or anyone else for that matter. If anything they'll be quite interested to hear about your abilities if you choose to share it with them."

"Edward-"

"You don't have to if you don't want to. You hardly know them, so no one will blame you for not trusting total strangers with your secret."

"Of course I'll go, and if they're allowing a strange human into their home the least I can do is be open with them too."

"Excellent. I should probably go before you father wakes up, but I'll be back later if you want me to come."

"I'd like that."

Author's note:

I'm going to be honest; I never expected this to be so long. I have at least one more part, maybe two, before it's done, and it's already seven pages in. It was only supposed to be five at the most, but that's writing for you. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed it. Please consider reviewing to let me know what you think. I respond back to all non anonymous reviews!

Sincerely,

The Eager Scribbler


End file.
